


Modulus of resilience

by Dasku



Category: Criminal Minds (US TV)
Genre: Canon Compliant, Found Family, Gen, Season/Series 07, Team as Family
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-18
Updated: 2021-01-18
Packaged: 2021-03-17 00:46:16
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 11,022
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28840359
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Dasku/pseuds/Dasku
Summary: At times, Emily almost convinces herself that it’s just her imagination, leftover paranoia of what feels like a lifetime of subterfuge. Relationships don't go back to the way they were just because one wishes it so, not even when all the parts involved know the exact reasons of what changed them in the first place.Emily is back in the BAU. Not everything is as it was.
Relationships: Aaron Hotchner & Emily Prentiss, Derek Morgan & Emily Prentiss, Emily Prentiss & David Rossi, Emily Prentiss & Everyone, Emily Prentiss & Spencer Reid, Penelope Garcia & Jennifer "JJ" Jareau & Emily Prentiss
Comments: 4
Kudos: 23





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Set at the beginning of season 7. Spoilers up to 7x06.
> 
> This has been in my drafts, almost complete (but not quite) for years and years and years. Through them, [evilythedwarf](https://archiveofourown.org/users/evilythedwarf/pseuds/evilythedwarf) was tremendous help in figuring things out, and [cuits](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Cuits/pseuds/Cuits), who is a saint, reread it (and cheered) every time I asked (and I asked a lot). Any remaining mistakes are mine.

_The modulus of resilience is defined as the maximum energy that can be absorbed_

_per unit volume without creating a permanent distortion._

At times, Emily almost convinces herself that it’s just her imagination, leftover paranoia of what feels like a lifetime of subterfuge. The profiler in her knows better than that. Relationships don't go back to the way they were just because one wishes it so, not even when all the parts involved know the exact reasons of what changed them in the first place.

It's in Reid breaking eye contact a tad too early, in Garcia's constant touching and the not quite comfortable silences with Morgan. It's catching Hotch looking at her from his office and JJ stopping by her desk several times a day, and Rossi just happening to be at the kitchenette when she arrives four out of five mornings, making a new pot of coffee and heating water for her tea.

There's a certain stiffness to every interaction, like machinery gone rusty, still working as it's supposed to but for the screeching and squeaking at every other turn. It's frustrating, knowing that the pieces fit, that it would all run smoothly if it weren't for that thin reddish layer of oxide.

The problem is, Emily doesn't know how deep it goes yet. After all the damage has been removed, will the remaining parts still work? It worries her, a constant knot in her stomach she feels with every deep breath she takes, and yet she knows that there's really no other option. Rusty parts end up breaking after all, and she's not about to let that happen.

* * *

Emily meets Morgan right outside the shooting range, bright and early and with the promised cup of coffee waiting for him.

He smiles brightly when he takes off his helmet and sees her with the coffee, but other than the soft greetings they exchange when he reaches her side, they do not talk much as they check in with the range officer and get ready. The shooting range is almost empty this early, and they've done this enough times to know exactly what to do and where to go.

As they enter the booths Emily feels suddenly nervous. It comes out of nowhere, unbridled and even though she knows it has more to do with not wanting to disappoint whatever expectations Morgan may have than with her skills with a gun, she still can't shake it off.

When they reach the booth, Morgan hands her the unloaded Glock with a knowing look and says, "Alright, Prentiss, let's see what you've got.” And just like that Morgan is just Morgan again, and by the time she's done with the first round, any trace of nervousness is long gone.

They take turns shooting, they discuss technicalities between rounds, types of weapons and their pros and cons — Reid's revolver gets an honorary mention and a minimum amount of mocking — but after a while, the target resetting and reloading becomes just an opportunity to taunt and tease each other over the results.

It's the most comfortable she’s felt with Morgan in weeks.

They stay for an extra half an hour, running out of ammo twice before calling it a day, and the silence between them as they get ready to leave is the easiest one yet.

By the time they reach his bike, Emily has decided that she's not ready for the morning to be over. "Hey, Morgan, buy you lunch?"

He looks at her suspiciously for a second. "You are not trying to bribe me out of those ten hours on the mat, are you?"

"I wouldn't dare," she replies with mock seriousness. "Although, theoretically speaking, would it be working?"

"No way, princess," he says with a laugh. "Besides, you’re not getting out of showing me those secret spy moves of yours."

Emily can't help the snort that escapes her. "Yeah, prepare to be severely disappointed."

"By you? Not possible," he says passing his arm over her shoulders and squeezing.

It hits her then that they are actually joking about her being a spy, and she can feel herself breathe a little bit easier, the knot in her stomach becoming a little bit looser. "Come on," she says swatting him lightly on the arm and moving towards her car, grinning widely, "I know a place."

* * *

Emily takes Morgan to a little Italian place close to her new apartment, an old family restaurant that never seems to lack customers despite having been surrounded by a baffling number of well-known franchises over the last 20 years.

As soon as they enter a small hurried-looking woman greets Emily from behind the counter with a kitchen towel in her hand and a big smile on her face. "Emily, cara!"

Morgan raises an eyebrow, amused. "Exactly how often do you eat here, Prentiss?"

"Not often enough," she says as she waves back, chuckling.

They are seated at one of the tables next to the window by a kid not a day over sixteen that looks remarkably similar to the older man in one of the big pictures right above the cash register.

"Actually, it was Rossi who brought me here almost as soon as he learned I lived close by. Edna — " she says nodding towards the woman," — is the owner, and an old family friend of Rossi's, apparently. He says it's the only decent Italian restaurant in the city."

"An Italian restaurant with Rossi's seal of approval? Must be good," Morgan says, and then, lowering his voice conspiratorially he adds, "or a _very_ close friend."

Edna herself comes to take their order, her Italian accent still strong despite having lived for decades in the States. She chides Emily gently for not visiting more often in a way that reminds her of the very first tutor she had when they moved to Italy, back when it was just an exciting new place full of possibilities. Edna asks about Rossi and brightens up when she learns that Morgan is a friend of his, too.

They both go with the day’s special, and the meal is as relaxed and comfortable as the time at the shooting range was, with none of the awkwardness that lately had seemed to come up between them more often than not.

She knows it won't last, though, knows they aren't there yet, and even if it's nice to play make-believe for a while, it just makes her all the more eager to fix things.

By the time they are done, Morgan has declared several times his undying love for both the mushroom risotto and Edna herself, telling her so when she comes by to ask how everything was and to offer them coffee and dessert.

They are half-way through their desserts — tiramisu and panna cotta — when he finally asks. "So, how much of what I know about you do I need to update?"

"Morgan—"

"Hey, I'm not judging, I get it. I just want to know what's different."

She's been expecting questions — of course she has — to the point where she's actually surprised it has taken any of them this long to ask. It still doesn't mean they don't make her nervous or that she feels ready to answer them, but she decided when she came back that it wouldn’t be for lack of trying. And so she tries.

"Mostly the professional stuff. I didn't exactly come from a desk job."

Morgan throws her a balled-up napkin in response that passes surprisingly close to her head, so she elaborates. "I was recruited by the CIA right before finishing college. I actually did have a desk job for quite a while, it was mostly analysis work but it's what started me on profiling. I changed units after a while, got a little experience with undercover missions for a couple of years and then I was asked to join JTF-12." She pauses. "I spent almost five years there. Most of the work involved profiling with short-term infiltrations."

Morgan doesn't say anything for a couple of seconds, just stares at her not giving anything away. "Prentiss, you just gave me a damn report on your professional career."

She's about to protest when she realizes he's right. "Bad habits die hard, I guess," she responds sheepishly. Emily doesn't know what else to say, so she just asks, "What do you want to know?"

"Anything," he replies, looking straight at her, frustration coloring his voice. "Emily, it's not about me knowing the details — it never has been. I don't want your official file, I could get that if I wanted,” he adds, and then continues more softly, “It's about you knowing that you can tell me, that you can trust me."

She looks down to the half-finished tiramisu, flashing to almost the same conversation in a car, almost a lifetime ago. She remembers the underlying panic back then, the feeling that no matter what she did the whole thing would end up exploding right in her face and taking part of her team with it. In a way, it did.

"Hey, Emily," Morgan says, touching her chin lightly until she looks up at him again. "Nothing you can tell me is going to change how I feel about you. You know that, don't you?"

He says it with utter conviction, like it is a universal truth, a constant in time and space that the world is just going to have to accept. She has always admired that about him, that mix of straightforwardness and honesty that makes it almost impossible not to believe him.

"I know," she replies after a beat. "I _really_ do know. Doesn't make me any better at sharing, though."

Morgan smiles softly as he takes a spoonful of her tiramisu before she can protest. "Well, _that_ we can work on."

* * *

They leave Edna's with a full stomach and the promise of returning soon with Rossi in tow. They fall silent as they walk towards where Morgan parked his bike, their shoulders touching every few steps. Morgan's brow is slightly furrowed in concentration, obviously mulling something over; Emily doesn't say anything, knowing by now he'll tell her when he's ready.

It doesn't take him long. "Do you remember anything from that night?"

"Bits and pieces," she answers frowning, slightly surprised by the question. "I remember you found me. Parts of the ambulance ride, too," she adds suppressing a shudder at the memories. And as an afterthought, "I think you held my hand."

He's silent for a moment, halting before speaking again. "I found you and I held your hand and I told you how proud I am of being your friend and your partner." He pauses for effect, trying to drive his point home, his face as serious as she's ever seen it. "That hasn't changed, Emily. I hope you know that."

She has no idea of how to respond to that kind of sentiment. She'd only stumble over her words in an attempt to make it justice and even if she actually knew what to say, she doesn't think her voice would be steady enough to avoid embarrassing herself. It was one of the things that surprised her the most, in the beginning, how emotionally open Morgan is with those he cares about, how that kind of honesty seems to come effortlessly to him. It still throws her off, especially when directed at her.

He must see her struggle because he doesn't wait for a response. "So you are... _challenged_ when it comes to trusting people," he says teasingly. "That's okay. I'm sure we can find time for you to practice between my kicking your ass on the mat and at the shooting range."

She has a hundred rebuttals at the tip of her tongue, ways to make light of what he's saying, but they die almost as fast as they appear. After a moment she manages to say with only the slightest hitch in her voice, "Morgan? I'm going to hug you now, ok?"

He raises his eyebrows in surprise for a second before saying with a warm smile, "Ok."

She hugs him tightly, trying to convey almost through osmosis how thankful she is for everything, how much she missed him while she was away, how sorry she is that she had to lie to him. It's comfortable and safe, and nothing like the shocked hug he gave her when she first saw him after she came back.

It doesn't mean they're fine — not yet. There are still ways to go, but it does make the path look clearer, gives her hope and makes her feel accomplished in ways scoring a perfect round at the shooting range can't even compare.

When she finally lets go, she gives him a watery smile and says, "Now, don't get too used to this. Next time I'm this close, I'll have you in a headlock."

Morgan keeps laughing all the way to his bike.


	2. Chapter 2

When Garcia proposes a girls night out, Emily says yes immediately.

She has missed Garcia terribly, and a furtive meeting in Paris and on-line Scrabble with JJ is nowhere near enough contact for all the time she's been away. They agree on the first Saturday they are in town, and after two weeks in a row getting a case on Thursday and Friday respectively, Emily finds herself crossing her fingers during the whole week, hoping the third time's the charm.

Garcia uses visitation rights over Sergio as an excuse to pick her up, and after a good ten minutes of codling and cooing and showing him the three different new toys and other regalia she’s bought since she returned him to Emily, they finally get going.

They meet JJ at one of their usual places, a bar with the best guacamole in town, music low enough to carry a conversation without shouting, and darts in case JJ feels like hustling some of the frat boys that frequent it sometimes. When they arrive the place is half-full and getting fuller by the minute, so it's a relief when they find JJ already waiting for them in one of the booths.

"JJ, hey! Have you been waiting for long?" Emily asks as she kisses her on the cheek before sitting right in front of her.

"Not long," she says smiling as she greets Garcia, "I am guessing Sergio is to blame?"

"Well," Emily replies looking rather amusedly at Garcia as she takes the seat next to her, "I wouldn't say Sergio exactly, but he was involved."

"It was just five minutes!" Garcia says indignantly, "I didn't even have any time to see him with the new sweater I knitted for him!"

"And that's Sergio," Emily tells JJ, raising her eyebrows all mock seriousness. "I have newfound amounts of respect for you, JJ."

Garcia slaps Emily lightly on the arm. "I'll have you both know that I take my godmother duties very seriously. Human and otherwise."

* * *

By the time the waiter arrives with their food, they have almost finished the first round and Emily is up to date on every single new thing Henry has done in the last nine months (most of it accompanied by pictures thanks to the almost creepy but expected amount in both JJ and Garcia's phones), and they are starting on the must-know pieces of gossip the Bureau has generated in the latest weeks.

Emily isn't that interested in the gossip itself, but she has missed this, talking for the sake of talking, without worrying about who may overhear or wondering if these five minutes of not breathing the current case may be the ones that decide if they get to the unsub's latest victim in time.

She tunes back to the conversation just as Garcia is finishing relating Anderson's latest dating adventure — which apparently he likes to share every time he and Garcia coincide at the vending machines. "The poor thing, you'd think he'd have better luck," Garcia says laughing, "I mean, he is cute and he doesn't send any of the obvious crazy-signals..."

JJ looks mischievously to Garcia for a moment before saying, "I've caught him checking Emily out a couple of times."

"What!? _No_." Emily doesn't even have to fake the slight panic in her voice when she sees where JJ's going with it, "I mean really... just _no_." JJ and Garcia look far from convinced, so she adds lightly, "Besides, Sergio is more than enough male presence in my life."

“Female, then?” JJ replies with a teasing smile and a raised eyebrow.

"Aww, come on, Em!" Garcia says, clearly on board with JJ's idea. "Honey, if anyone deserves some loving, that's you. And Anderson is a perfectly good candidate. Besides, I've heard good reviews from one of the techs on the third floor, if you know what I mean," she finishes with a totally unnecessary wink.

Emily groans half-heartedly, "Really? There are reviews now?"

"Don't throw it yet, I could have used some of those five years ago," adds JJ, with a small grimace before taking a gulp of her beer.

"Darling, I can't help it if the information just comes to me, can I? And you know I only use it for good," Garcia says with a straight face as she mockingly draws a cross over her heart. "So, whaddya say?"

"It's just... I don't think I'm ready for that kind of complication right now," Emily responds, not quite looking at Garcia.

She's readying herself for exasperated looks and maybe attempts at cajoling her, but both Garcia and JJ remain silent, and when Emily turns to look at JJ, she has this searching look, as if there was something amiss she was trying to figure out. "JJ, you are giving me a look — why are you giving me a look?"

JJ doesn't say anything for a second and when she meets her gaze again the look is gone, and the teasing tone has come back to her voice. "Hey, if you don't like him, you don't like him."

Emily doesn't buy it for a second. "Jayje? Come on, talk to me," she insists, "please?"

The fact that she has to insist just serves as another reminder of how things are not the same as they were. Even JJ, who is the one with whom everything seems easier these days, still gets these looks every once in a while that she doesn't quite understand.

It's Garcia who answers softly, apparently knowing exactly what's on JJ's mind. "You kept the ring."

Oh. _Oh_.

She doesn't need any clarification on which ring she's referring to. Or where the looks are coming from.

"But you don't have to say anything," Garcia hurries to add, "I mean, you can tell us, _of course_ you can, if you need to — you know, talk. Or whatever." She takes a deep breath and gives Emily a small smile. "What I mean to say is that we don't need you to tell us if you don't want to."

Emily is pretty sure she has never wanted to hug Garcia as much as she does at this moment; JJ, too, for that matter. She thinks of Morgan then, and she swears she can hear his voice saying _Emily, you can trust us_ right in her ear, and so she takes a breath and says: "But I do. I want to."

She makes a frustrated noise, wishing it were easier than this, that there were some magical way to have them just suddenly know. She wants them to know, so she tries. "I did keep the ring."

When neither JJ nor Garcia do anything else but look at her encouragingly, she continues. "For what it's worth, after all this time, I'm still not even sure why I kept it," she says as she grabs the almost empty beer bottle with both hands to stop fidgeting. "Some days I convinced myself that it was a way of remembering Declan, of reminding myself what good came of it and why I had left. The rest..." She doesn't even know how to finish the sentence. "After a while, I didn't even think about it any more," she says smiling ruefully.

"Did you love him?" JJ has always been able to ask the hard questions.

"Lauren did," Emily replies after a beat, and even though it hasn't stopped sounding like a cop-out, it's the only accurate way she's ever been able to express whatever it was that she felt for Doyle.

"I asked Derek once," Garcia begins, "what it was like to work deep undercover. I remember he told me it was like playing a role but without any time off. And that the longer you stay in character, the blurrier the lines between who you are and who you play become."

"That sounds about right," Emily says smiling gratefully to Garcia.

"Em," JJ asks softly, "how long were you under?"

This she doesn't have to think about, facts and numbers have always been easy. "It took almost four months to establish contact with Doyle," she recalls, "after that, there were another seven months with sporadic contact and then the final eight months in which I lived with him."

She can see rather than hear JJ's sharp intake of breath as she adds how many months that amounts to; it comes at almost the same time as Garcia's whispered, "Oh, Em."

It occurs to Emily that she should be ridiculously thankful for the fact that somehow, she has friends that are worrying about how it affected her instead of focusing on all the lying involved or inadvertently bringing to life any of the dozen scenarios her subconscious had come up with during the darkest moments of her time away in which they explained to her why it was all too much to forgive.

She decides then that they've had enough seriousness for the night. Hell, she's had too much seriousness for a lifetime, and she's pretty sure even Morgan wouldn't begrudge her for doing her sharing in small doses.

"You know what the worst part is?" she says, amusement dancing in her eyes, "It's technically the longest relationship I've had since college." JJ and Garcia look at her for a moment, slightly thrown by the change, until JJ lets out the most unladylike snort and then the three of them are gone, cracking up until there are tears running down their faces, a mix of accumulated tension and sheer amusement.

As they laugh, Emily has one of those moments of almost out-of-body perfect clarity where you become aware that whatever it is that's taking place, it's significant and will be remembered.

Garcia is the first that stops laughing long enough to say, "Ladies, I think we've reached the point where we need something stronger than beer."

* * *

After the third round, they move to one of the high tables near the darts and change the beers for a Cosmopolitan, a Manhattan and a Margarita. Garcia tells them about her salsa classes which include — much to Kevin's chagrin — an extremely hot teacher with a sexy accent; she even tries to show Emily a few moves much to JJ's amusement, who even with the distraction manages to win easily their fourth round of drinks in a game of darts against two guys that seemed way more interested in Garcia's dance moves than in the game.

They talk about Paris, what she did, when she missed them — that she did has not ever been in question — and Emily tells them about the month of rehabilitation with Gretchen, a very nice German nurse that seemed plucked out of a book of clichés, and how she spent over two months going to every _chocolaterie_ she knew in search of the best chocolate in Paris.

Before they know it, the music is gone, the lights are turned on and they are being very gently kicked out of the bar by a bouncer with a back twice as wide as any of them. JJ's is in the opposite direction so they linger right outside the bar for a bit before saying their goodbyes. None of them say anything when she hugs Emily instead of kissing her cheek as she did with Garcia. The hug is tighter than usual, longer too, and if Emily's eyes are a little brighter afterwards, she blames the cold air.

Garcia insists on walking Emily home before taking a taxi herself, claiming to have studied for many years the best taxi routes to arrive home in record time from most of the zones they usually frequent and declaring Emily's new apartment to be right next to one of them.

The walk leisurely; the night is clear and crisp, and after hours in the heat produced by a room full of people and less than optimum ventilation, the cold air is a welcome relief.

"I got the message," Emily suddenly blurts, almost surprised with herself for bringing it up at all.

"Honey, as good as I am, I am going to need more context than that."

"When I went to Boston after Doyle, I had one of my old cell phones," she explains. She can feel the moment Garcia knows what she's talking about, so she takes a deep breath and keeps going. "I received your voicemail. Or at least one of them. I — It meant _the world_ to me."

Garcia stops to look at her, eyes brighter than they were seconds ago and the kindest smile on her face. She takes a shaky breath, threads her arm through Emily's, grasps her hand and tells her with unusual intensity, "Good. And don't you ever forget it, you hear me?"

Emily can only nod in response, matching Garcia's smile.

They walk like that the rest of the way and they only let go of each other to hug right before Garcia gets into her taxi (found in record time).

As she enters her apartment, Emily feels — as corny as it sounds — lighter, more out of sheer relief than from the pleasant buzz she still has from those last two drinks or from the rush of a damn good night out. She's genuinely surprised by how much not telling JJ & Garcia about Doyle had weighed on her, even before everything fell to pieces.

The last thing she remembers as she drifts off to sleep is thinking that Morgan may be onto something with all his talk about trust, after all.


	3. Chapter 3

After dinner at Rossi's, Reid goes back to normal with JJ, to the point where no one would know something had been amiss in the first place. He's still sometimes uncharacteristically shy with Emily though, and every attempt she has made to see him outside of work — something they used to do quite often before — has been met with excuses.

The fifth time Reid declines an invitation it’s at the bullpen's entrance, just as he's leaving for the day; most agents are gone and Emily doesn't bother to hide her frustration when she returns to her desk. Morgan happens to enter the bullpen at the same time, and when he sees her face he makes a beeline for her desk, where he leans on the closest corner, looks at her for a second, silently evaluating before asking, "Everything alright there, Prentiss?"

"Sure," she says without much conviction. "It's just..." she looks the way Reid has just left and sighs defeatedly. Apparently, that's all Morgan needs.

"Patience, Emily. He'll come around." And with a small smile and a tap on her shoulder with the file folder he's carrying, he turns around and goes up to Hotch's office.

Patience. She can do that.

* * *

Emily follows Morgan's advice right away and stops the invitations altogether.

After a couple of weeks, she starts catching Reid staring at her at the end of the day, almost expectant, and she finds it somewhat reassuring that there's at least some kind of reaction at all.

He calls her on Wednesday night, almost a month after she stopped her invitation and in what turns out to be the slowest week since she came back. It’s later than she would have expected anyone to call with plans for that same evening, but it's Reid, and he's actually calling her for something other than work, so as soon as he confirms there's not a new case, she's ready to say yes to almost anything.

He tells her about a German cinema cycle in one of the places they used to go to. They are showing _Lola Rennt_ , which they tried to catch once but didn't, courtesy of a serial arsonist in Denver with a bad case of sibling jealousy.

She doesn't miss that Wednesdays are the days he goes to his NA meetings or that the cinema in question is the one close by. She doesn't question it either.

They meet 15 minutes before the session is supposed to start, giving them enough time to buy the tickets without a hurry but not so much that they'll have to find something to do until they are able to go in, and Emily misses the days when details like that wouldn't have even crossed her mind.

Out of everyone in the team, he's the one Emily worried about the most. She didn't expect things to be just fine when she came back, she'd known there would be issues, but she didn't expect him to lash out the way he has either. She still worries — more so with each new excuse to avoid her — and on bad days Emily fleetingly wonders if maybe this has been the metaphorical straw that breaks the camel's back for him.

She spots him right away next to the cinema's main entrance, still wearing the same clothes he'd worn to work; he smiles at her when he sees her, a shy smile with none of the tension there's been lately, and she can feel herself relax a little. When she's close enough he gives his usual hand wave and even if it's more than she's had in months, the simple gesture is another reminder of how things have changed.

Reid isn't a touchy person. None of them are, especially when they are in the field, but they tend to make up for it when they are off-duty. It's nothing over the top, really — it would not catch anyone's eye in any other group of people, just casual touches here and there, a hand on the knee, an arm around the shoulders, a kiss on the cheek to say hello or goodbye. But it is a change in their dynamics, a way of reinforcing that they are off-duty, that they can relax. It makes all the difference.

They discussed the importance of human touch on their way back from a case once, the comfort derived from even the simplest contact from someone dear. JJ, who had just come back from maternity leave, mentioned the numerous studies that associated faster and better development in newborns that were touched as opposed to those who weren't, and Reid sprouted statistics right away from several articles he'd read on the influence of touch on people with mental illnesses during its asymptomatic development and posterior manifestation, as well as during the rehabilitation process.

It was one of the rare occasions where Garcia was with them, and Emily only remembers so much of it because her contribution to the conversation somehow left Hotch blushing — or as close to blushing as Hotch could get — and the rest of the team practically crying with laughter while a very embarrassed Garcia apologized profusely.

She also remembers it was after that conversation when Reid started being more deliberate with casual touches, giving her a quick hug in greeting or even kissing her hello every once in a while instead of just waving his hand when they met outside of work.

It felt important at the time, comforting and reassuring much like girls night out with Garcia and JJ did.

The movie is not long, barely an hour and a half, and so even though it is a late session, it's not terribly late when they leave the cinema.

They stroll on their way back, the weather still chilly but not enough to be uncomfortable. They discuss the movie as they've done many times before, the pattern familiar down to the part where Emily brings something up (the fate vs. free will theme in the movie) that sends Reid off into a lecture only tangentially related to what they were actually talking about in the first place (the theological aspects of the aforementioned issue according to the many books on the subject he used as reference in a paper for his Philosophy degree).

It feels normal in a way it hadn't since she got back.

Emily interrupts him every once in a while, asking questions or rebutting arguments, but she mostly listens. There's something mesmerizing about Reid like this, excited and on a roll on a random topic he enjoys. He's smiling too, and not one of those close-mouthed smiles he uses when he's trying to be polite, but an honest to God smile, full of teeth and Reid's own brand of cockiness.

When they near the subway station where they part ways, she hesitates, unsure of how to play it, not wanting to upset the precarious balance they seem to have struck. "This has been nice," she says with a smile.

He ducks his head bashfully and says, "Yeah, it has." And although his smile is not as wide as before and he is still keeping his distance, there's something easier about it, less tense, as if keeping the anger at bay was taking less of an effort.

"Thank you," she adds. He only nods in response and she can't tell if he gets that she's not thanking him just for the movie. Emily ponders saying something else, but then she thinks of Morgan's advice — and when did he move into the back of her brain, anyway — and with one last smile she adds, "See you tomorrow."

* * *

The next time Reid calls she's expecting it. Mostly.

They fly in from California first thing in the morning. The most immediate paperwork was dealt with the day before and after throwing Rossi a questioning glance, Hotch tells all of them not to come in until the next day.

Emily ends up spending the morning shopping.

Even with Garcia's extremely detailed compilation on where to buy everything under the sun — from vintage furniture to napkin holders with the animals from the Hogwarts houses — her new apartment is still practically empty, only with the basic furniture that came with it and the odd generic item she’s been given as a housewarming gift by acquaintances.

It feels empty too, unlived, with only a handful of her things around — Hotch and JJ could only keep so much without raising suspicion — but with her working hours, procrastinating on getting what’s missing has been too easy.

She hits one of the biggest malls in the city, decided on powering through and getting as much shopping done as she's able. She only leaves to make it to lunch with Rossi, who is still mourning Carolyn’s death and looks more down than she's ever seen him.

She tries to keep him entertained through lunch, tells him about her training hours with Morgan and even brings up the odd embarrassing story from her rebellious teenage years, but she barely succeeds in making him smile and he leaves soon after with the promise of keeping Emily updated and a haunted look that leaves her more than a little worried.

By the time she gets home, she's feeling pretty proud of herself; she's managed to buy a number of kitchen utensils she had only missed when she actually needed them in the middle of cooking, a cabinet to stack the books currently piled on the living-room floor, a lamp and a very cool and much needed magnetic key holder.

She's in the middle of trying to set up the cabinet — trying being the operative word — when she hears her cell phone ring in the bedroom. She manages to pick it up on the fourth ring, out of breath and with the promise of a new lovely bruise on her hip in a couple of days. "Hello?"

"Emily?"

"Hey, Reid!"

"Is this a bad time?" he asks, clearly able to hear her trying to catch her breath, "I can call you later if you are—"

"No, it's good," she says sounding a bit calmer. "I just had the phone in the other room. What's up?"

She can hear him clear his throat softly. "I was wondering if you would like to grab dinner."

He sounds almost nervous, and Emily can't help but smile into the phone. "Sure! I was ready to concede on this build-it-yourself shelf I bought this morning, anyway."

"You and build-it-yourself furniture?" Reid asks, seemingly baffled at the idea.

"Yeah, I don't know what I was thinking either," she replies self-deprecatingly. "Give me… 45 minutes?"

They say their goodbyes without much fanfare, and fifty minutes later they are on their way to a small diner Reid discovered on one of his Sunday brunches with JJ, who in turn knew of it through Will, who happened to find it on a Very Bad Morning when the coffee machine broke, and the diner happened to be the first place open that served coffee on his way to the park with Henry.

The place is small enough to seem almost cozy, with vinyl booths, a jukebox that seems taken out of a low budget version of Grease, and a perky waitress with big hair and an honest smile that welcomes them as soon as they enter.

Even though the conversation is distended throughout dinner, Reid is still subdued. It's different from how he has been in previous weeks, more distracted than anything else, as if his mind were somewhere else. He falls silent every so often, brief lulls in the conversation that stop as soon as he catches himself.

It's on one of those silences when she calls him on it. "Out with it."

Reid looks a bit embarrassed although not entirely surprised, as if he knew it was just a matter of time that she'd notice.

"You died," he replies after a beat, looking straight into her eyes. It doesn't need more explanation than that.

"Yes, I did."

Emily has lived most of her life with death as a very real possibility — a security detail as a child, a career in law enforcement and every single day in the BAU have a way of driving the point home. She's had more close calls than she cares for, and buried more friends than she'd like. Death has been around her for a long time and yet the memories from flatlining in the ambulance and in the operating room have unsettled her more than any other experience she's ever had.

Reid must see something in her expression because suddenly the look on his face loses some of its sadness and becomes resolute. "After Tobias, I read everything I could find on death experiences, recollections, formal studies, theories. The impossibility of any type of scientific approach to the experiment itself is frustrating because the problem becomes not a classic physics experiment in which you prove a theory empirically, but a collection of data from which to extrapolate conclusions. Only the data isn’t measured by the same parameters or even in the same environment and thus are unreliable."

"So, what did you learn?" she asks.

"There aren't two experiences alike," he replies with certainty. "Most of them share common factors, usually heavily influenced by the definitions given of the afterlife by the major religions: warmth and light for heaven, cold and darkness to hell. It also tends to affect people's perception of religion afterwards, mostly towards conversion, which in turn affects retroactively the recollection of the experience."

"You could say the same thing about alien abductions," she retorts raising her eyebrows, trying to lighten the mood a little bit and managing to elicit a chuckle from Reid.

"Emily," he says, looking earnest, "whatever experience you had — I believe your catholic upbringing and your emotional state when it happened may have affected your recollection. You are a good person." He's looking at her steadily, his gaze determined. "I refuse to believe that in a theoretical afterlife you would go anywhere but the best possible place."

Her breath catches for a second, the months of insomnia and the occasional nightmare suddenly as vivid as half a year ago. But she knows what he's doing and she loves him for it.

And maybe she was wrong and this is as much for her as for him, so she reaches across the table to squeeze his hand and smiles at him warmly if a bit shaky. After a couple of seconds, she starts to tell him what she remembers, about the recurrent dreams, the odd ones and hints from the ones that used to wake her up drenched in sweat.

They stay in the diner talking until way later than they should, and the next morning, when she decides to temporarily ignore the self-imposed moratorium on caffeine at the same time Reid is coming back with his second cup of coffee after just one hour at work, she can't help answering his bashful grin with one of her own.

* * *

Somehow, they end up marathoning Lord of the Rings.

One moment Emily is on the flight back home from Kansas commenting how she had only managed to catch the first part of the trilogy, the next she's sprawled on Reid's couch between him and Garcia, watching Gandalf kick Balrog's ass in the Mines of Moria.

Almost as soon as they got back home, she received a very detailed email with a movie-watching schedule for the following Saturday, a list of recommended beverages and food combos for an optimal experience and the advice of wearing comfy clothes. After three straight hours, Emily is really glad Reid thought to mention the comfy clothes. She got rid of her boots after just an hour, and she's pretty sure she run out of positions on the couch sometime during the fellowship’s stay at Rivendel.

Ever since the night at the diner, things have been almost back to normal with Reid. The smiles come easier and more often, and as far as she can tell, he hasn't tried to avoid her again.

Things are good, almost better than she expected at the beginning, but they are still not exactly back to what they were before and even though it's the smallest of differences, she feels it like an itch she can't scratch.

Garcia stays only for the first movie. She bids adieu but not before naming Emily special agent in charge of ogling Viggo Mortensen for the rest of the evening on her behalf and granting them both permission to lust without reservations over any of "the many pretty people in these films". Reid blushes accordingly, not as much as he would have once, but enough for Garcia, who winks mischievously as she closes the door behind her.

After the second movie and adding a pair of Reid's socks to her attire in an attempt to avoid losing any toes to the cold, they order Thai for dinner.

Reid entertains her by telling her about the many shenanigans the Lord of the Ring cast were up to while they were filming the movie. Somehow, that gets him started on some of the techniques they used to create the height difference between the hobbits and the rest of the characters, which in turn evolves to special effects in modern film-making.

Reid stops mid-sentence all of a sudden. "I'm rambling, aren't I?" he says, smiling ruefully. "You usually stop me before I get too... rambly."

Emily smiles softly. "I will deny ever saying this, but I've kind of missed your ramblings," she replies.

Reid smiles and ducks his head and when he looks up his expression is slightly embarrassed. "I — I never asked you," he clears his throat, "I never asked you how you were. During those months."

She gives him a reassuring smile and gathers her thoughts for a moment before answering. "At first, I was _so_ angry." She remembers the agent from the State Department that went to see her not long after she woke up from the three-day drug-induced coma. She remembers trying to understand what he was telling her through the haze of drugs and the underlying pain they kept at bay, all while wondering why no one from the team had visited yet. She remembers when it all sunk in and she can almost taste the anger and the sadness all over again.

"It — I felt like Doyle had finally won," she adds with a bitter smile. "He was still alive, on his way to finding Declan, and he had gotten what he wanted when he came back to DC, to take my family away the same way I took his." She knows it's not the same — deep down she has always known — but during those first months away, she could have sworn the loss didn't feel any different.

"They got me out of the country as soon as I was cleared for travel," Emily explains. "A couple of weeks later I got new documentation and that was that. A new life."

"JJ," Reid says, not a question. "She explained," he adds with a small grimace, still slightly ashamed of how he took it out on her after Emily returned.

"I still have no idea how she managed to be cleared to bring them to me herself," Emily says shaking her head fondly. "She must have pulled every single string she had and then some to pull it off."

She remembers the relief she felt when it was JJ on the other side of the connecting door in the hotel room where she was supposed to make contact with the person that would provide her new aliases. She also remembers the exact moment she realized how dangerous it was for her to be there, how she tensed with dread before JJ, noticing, hugged her tighter and whispered, "Em, it's okay — it's safe."

"I think some days it's the only thing that kept me sane," Emily adds, almost like an afterthought.

"JJ is very good at that," Reid offers, and when Emily meets his gaze she knows he talks from experience.

They both fall silent.

"He wouldn't have let me walk," Emily finally says. She knew this as surely as she knew he would go after her when he escaped from North Korea; it still didn't make things any easier. "Making me leave was the right decision. It fit the profile."

"I know," Reid says with a sigh after a long pause. "I just wish—"

"I couldn't risk it," she says with certainty. "Reid, I couldn't risk any of you." Reid nods in understanding and they don't say anything else on the subject.

They watch The Return of the King, and when Emily cries when Sam and Frodo reach Mount Doom, Reid gives her a soft smile, takes her hand gently in his and holds on for the rest of the movie.

After the movie she lingers, helping him tidy up the leftovers and just hanging out for a bit longer. As she's leaving, Reid kisses her goodbye on the cheek, as naturally as he had started it years ago and apparently completely oblivious to the fact that it had been months since the last time he did.

She grins all the way to her car and as she takes off her coat before starting it, she thinks for the first time that maybe it will be completely okay after all.


	4. Chapter 4

Emily is pretty sure she hasn't seen Hotch gesticulate this much in all the time she has known him. Rossi either, for that matter.

Jack's soccer match has already started when Morgan and Emily arrive from the shooting range. Rossi and Hotch are on one of the sidelines, talking between them and cheering the kids louder than any other parent around. Garcia, Kevin and Reid are not far behind them, Reid with a cup of coffee in his hand and his sunglasses on, and Garcia and Kevin carrying a banner with as many colors as different markers Garcia owns.

When they reach their side, Emily can't help but look at Reid's coffee with something akin to longing. "Still caffeine free?" he asks amused.

"Mostly," she answers, making no effort whatsoever in masking how much she misses caffeine at that moment. It's irrelevant that she has been awake for almost four hours now, anything before 11am on a Sunday it's just too damn early.

JJ arrives not long after them with Henry and Will in tow. It takes her less than five minutes to leave Henry with Uncle Spence before she's right next to Rossi and Hotch talking strategy like the best of them. Will follows her with his eyes, a smitten look on his face, while Reid points out to Henry — now sporting Reid's sunglasses — that this time next year he will be playing with all those other kids.

When the match is over — they win 5-2, although Rossi informs them that technically they are not counting — they join Hotch, Rossi, and JJ in making a tunnel of arms for all the kids, and even Reid leaves his coffee aside to join them without much prompting.

As Hotch makes sure all the kids are returned to their parents, Morgan, Kevin and Will make a trip to the cars to get everything they need.

Much to everyone's surprise, it was actually Rossi's idea to spend the day all together in the park. After the previous match, he mentioned offhandedly to Hotch how it would be very easy to make a day out of it, if the weather accompanied. A couple of weeks later, with spring starting to set in and the days beginning to be on the right side of warm, Rossi recruited Garcia and from there it didn't take much to convince everyone else.

In a true demonstration of teamwork, it only takes Morgan and Reid a bit less than ten minutes to decide on a place to set together the blankets Morgan brought from the car, and another five to get everyone a glass of Will's lemonade. They manage to crush two glasses in the process — one Reid, one Kevin — and by the time they are actually done even Hotch is close to outright laughing at Morgan's exasperated expressions.

It feels delightfully normal and domestic and a hundred other adjectives Emily hasn't had much use for most of her life.

By the time they actually get settled, Jack and Henry are growing restless, Henry glancing shyly every so often to the soccer ball Hotch has in one of the bags.

"Henry," Emily asks, pointing with her chin to the ball in question, "do you want to play with me?" Henry, still shy around so many adults, looks at JJ for approval before nodding enthusiastically. "What about you, Jack? Or are you too tired from the game?"

"I'm not tired!" he says with a big grin as he stands up with a jump and goes to pick up the ball.

They play for a while, JJ and Henry against Jack and her. They use trees as posts for the goals and take turns as goalkeepers; JJ, as expected, gives her a run for her money every time it's the kids’ turn as goalkeepers, but even though Henry clearly takes after his mom, Jack still has a couple of years on him, so it evens out.

The second time JJ leaves her sitting on the ground after dribbling her in what seems to Emily an almost impossible maneuver, she just stays there, trying to catch her breath while Jack screams, "Emily, defense!" sounding eerily similar to Rossi. As she stands up she catches JJ's goal celebration dance and she can't help the snort that escapes her before muttering, "I'm getting too old for this."

* * *

Twenty minutes later, she still feels tired. Morgan is playing in her place now, and she has to admit JJ's skills look even more impressive from the outside.

She's lying down on one of the blankets, her head resting on Garcia's lap while she listens to Kevin and Reid's very intense discussion on different sci-fi shows take on the "Aliens speaking English" trope. She's tempted to join in, but the sun is shining, Garcia is rhythmically running her hands through her hair and she's feeling more and more relaxed by the minute; butting in seems just too much of a fuss.

"There's an ice-cream booth next to the park’s entrance," Hotch says bringing her out of her reverie, "do any of you want anything?"

Garcia, Reid and Rossi all answer at the same time with their flavor of choice, and Emily's raised eyebrow at Rossi's unexpected enthusiasm over ice-cream is met with an unapologetic grin.

"I think you are going to need more hands," Emily says to an equally amused Hotch as she stands up. "I'll go with you, I'll end up falling asleep right here if I don't move."

The sounds of the park fill the silence as they walk towards the park's entrance, children squealing from a nearby playset, the odd bark, and muffled voices from dozens of conversations. It feels unexpectedly calming and Emily is reluctant to break it.

"How's the new apartment?" Hotch asks after a while.

"Still half empty," she replies. "A couple of weeks ago I made the terrible mistake of buying furniture that requires instructions," she adds as dramatically as possible. Hotch just raises an eyebrow, the corner of his mouth pulling upward the tiniest bit. "Honest to God instructions, Hotch. Instructions that tell me I need friends to build shelves and that mention types of wrenches I'm pretty sure don't exist."

"Aren't they supposed to come with them?"

"You'd think so," she says with mock indignation.

"I can check if I have any at home, if you want," offers Hotch, ever the gentleman.

"Nah. My plan is to trick Morgan into setting it up for me," she says with an impish smile. "I'll just conveniently mention how I'm planning to do just the opposite of how things are actually supposed to go in front of him and he won't be able to resist."

Hotch laughs out loud and Emily thinks it's a damn pity he doesn't do it more often. He looks relaxed, no sight of the tension he usually carries around. It reminds her of how he was with Haley before everything fell apart.

"Jack looks really good," she blurts. As soon as she says it, it feels inadequate somehow, so she amends, "Happy, I mean. You both look happy."

When he looks at her Hotch is wearing what Emily often thinks of as "Hotch's secret smile"; it's far from a grin, it doesn't show any teeth and the upturn curl of his lips is minimal, but his eyes twinkle and shine enough to light a small stadium, and he only ever uses it with family. "We are," he says, a note of pride and only the slightest bit of sorrow in his voice.

As they near the ice-cream booth it becomes apparent they haven't been the only ones with the same idea. A queue of nearly a dozen people stands before them, and almost as many kids fleet around it, running around while their parents wait. They join the queue, watching with resignation the parsimonious rhythm the man in the booth seems to employ for every single step of the ice-cream selling process.

"You made the right decision, you know?" Emily says, after a couple of minutes in silence. He looks at her, prompting her to keep going, curiosity clear on his face.

"With me. And Doyle," she explains ducking her head, suddenly shy and not entirely sure why she has brought it up here, of all places. Except she does. She _knows_ Hotch. She's seen the struggle it was for JJ and she didn't have to watch the rest of the team mourn her every day. "I know it couldn't have been easy, and I don't think I’ve said thank you."

Hotch looks like he's about to protest, but then he just says, "You’re welcome," and then after a beat, with an intensity she's not used to, "I missed you." He is using _that_ smile too, and she still doesn't know what to do with what she sees in his eyes; it throws her in the same way Morgan's honesty does.

She smiles at him in return, wide and honest, and squeezes his hand for a second, just her fingers over his until the person in front of them finishes paying and it's their turn to order.

* * *

When they return with the ice-creams the soccer game — currently featuring Jack and Rossi versus Henry and JJ — goes into a break with a temporary result of 4-4. Rossi turns out to be more than half-decent at soccer and manages to hold his own against JJ, who only seems slightly winded after almost an hour of running around as much as the kids.

As soon as they're done with their ice-creams, Jack and Henry are up and running again, and it doesn't take them long to convince Will and Hotch to join them.

Half an hour later, everyone is playing except for Garcia and her very pretty but terribly inappropriate for soccer pumps. Jack, Hotch, JJ, Morgan and Kevin versus Henry, Will, Rossi, Reid and Emily. Garcia makes a very laudable effort to have Team Jack be Team Skins, much to Kevin's embarrassment, but a raised eyebrow from Hotch seems to settle Garcia faster than any of Kevin's half-hearted protests.

The game is almost more chaotic than the one a dozen of six years olds played that same morning. Morgan makes up for his lack of soccer skills by running after the ball almost with as much energy as Jack and Henry, while Reid spends the first ten minutes standing still next to one of the tree-posts, trying to avoid actually playing and organizing the team's strategy. He stays there until he's bodily removed under Rossi's instructions by a giggling Henry.

Emily doesn't do half bad. Anything remotely similar to dribbling is out of her league so she limits herself to passing the ball with varying degrees of precision every time Jack or Derek try to steal it. She does manage to score twice — with passes from Will and Rossi — and to get repeatedly in the way of whomever happens to be the goalkeeper so Henry can score. After Henry's third goal scored using that tactic, JJ's giving Emily the evil eye whenever Henry's not looking and Rossi is looking mildly impressed and more than a little proud. "Not bad, Prentiss, not bad," he tells her when she walks near him, and she can't help but grin widely in response.

After a while, it starts to degenerate.

Morgan and Jack start celebrating goals in the most outrageously ways possible, from the classic shirt-over-head celebration — which gets some loud cheering from Garcia — to Jack imitating Superman while Morgan runs around the field with him up in the air. It's not long before Henry and Will join in and decide to make a competition out of it. Then Garcia starts giving scores, and after a while, every member of the team is taking part in more and more elaborated antics.

The highest score goes to a human pile with all of them over Reid that leaves Garcia crying with laughter. When they finally get up, Emily's cheeks hurt from smiling and even Hotch is grinning widely, sitting on the grass next to a giggling Jack.

Before any of them realize it, it's well past lunchtime, so after a brief discussion on their chances of getting a table for eleven people, they end up in the nearest family restaurant, where they are given almost immediately one of those semicircular big tables with half of the seats on a leather booth and the other half in chairs.

Emily sits in the middle of the booth, sandwiched between Rossi and Morgan; in front of her and between Jack and Henry, Reid is surprisingly comfortable in the role of entertainer and/or keeper of the peace, thanks in part to how completely mesmerized both kids become when he performs the simplest magic trick. JJ, right next to Henry, is watching amusedly how Kevin explains to Will the concept of netiquette, while Morgan catches Garcia up on his mom's latest home improvement project. Both Hotch and Rossi are silent, small smiles on their faces that get bigger when they catch her watching.

When the waiter arrives, it takes them a ridiculous amount of time to decide on what to order. Rossi spends the whole time muttering under his breath about the wine menu — or lack thereof — and Kevin gets all flustered when he realizes he's the only one left to order and he hasn't even looked at the menu yet.

It's wonderfully chaotic, and everything a family lunch is supposed to be. It's also the complete opposite of every family meal Emily had while growing up and the fleeting twinge of sorrow she feels in her chest isn't as sharp as it used to be.

It strikes her all of a sudden, how very close she actually came to losing all of this, how very little it would have taken for something to go wrong. The mere thought of it overwhelms her, makes it hard to breathe and brings back a familiar tight knot of dread to her stomach with a vengeance.

A hand on her arm brings her back to reality, and then Rossi is there, as warm and solid as ever and looking at her like he knows exactly what's going through her head — and in all probability he does. His hand grasps hers under the table, squeezes softly and smiles, eyes full of understanding. She squeezes back and holds his gaze for a couple of beats, grounding herself before taking a deep breath and giving him a watery smile in thanks. He tells her softly, "Welcome back."

* * *

By the time they leave the restaurant — unsurprisingly — Jack and Henry finally run out of energy and are almost asleep in their parents’ arms. It seems a fitting end to their day, so when they reach the cars and the kids are carefully set in their respective car seats, they all say their goodbyes and go their separate ways.

Emily is still pondering the pros and cons of braving public transport versus calling a cab when Rossi — who happens to be going her way — offers her a ride home. She doesn't hesitate to accept.

She starts feeling the tiredness of the impromptu soccer match and the early morning almost as soon as she takes her seat in the car, its warmth and comfiness lulling her after the chill that had appeared in the air on the walk back to the cars, as the sun got lower and lower in the sky.

Emily goes over the day in her mind. She finds herself analyzing it, reviewing it with a critical eye, looking for anything that does not fit as it should, any stilted exchanges or eye contact broken too soon. When she finds none, something warm and calming spreads through her, making her breath catch softly at the realization.

"You are quiet," Rossi observes, breaking her out of her reverie. She turns to look at him, a small, tired smile on her face. "Bad quiet?" Rossi asks, with a raised eyebrow.

"No, not really," she replies. "It's been a very good day."

"But?"

"No buts," she says, almost convincingly.

"An 'and' then?"

She shakes her head, mildly exasperated by his ability to always ask the right question. "It's just — it was a _very good_ day," she says after a beat, as if she were giving something away. "I’m not used to very good days. I keep waiting for the other shoe to drop," she adds with half a shrug.

As they stop at a red light, Rossi takes her hand and waits until she's looking at him to speak. "Emily, you've paid your dues."

"I know," and this time her smile is a little wider, a little realer. It does help hearing it out loud.

“Good.”

When the light turns green, he squeezes her hand lightly before moving it back to the gearshift, a hint of a smile still on his face.

They make the rest of the short ride in silence, Rossi’s presence comforting in a way Emily has not had often in her life but that seems to be more and more common these days.

Rossi stops right in front of her building, and he says, “Get some rest, it was quite a day.”

“Thanks for the ride — and the mini-pep-talk,” she adds, smiling ruefully.

He laughs, deep and musical. “Anytime, Emily. Anytime.”

As she rides the elevator up to her apartment, she thinks about how awkward things felt when she returned, and somehow her fears about her place in this team — in this family — seem like a thing of the past, far away and blurry, more like a childhood memory than the very real feelings from a handful of weeks ago.

The day has felt like a reassurance that she didn’t know she needed, as if everything in the last few months were just an unexpected stress test to confirm the robustness of the links that bind them. Not quite like cogs fitting together in a piece of machinery, but like parts of the same elastic tissue, regaining its original shape after being stretched, maybe a little bit changed, slightly different from how it started, but still the same, at least in all the ways that count.

She can learn to live with those differences.

Emily goes to sleep feeling calm and content. She sleeps through the night.


End file.
